Leah Sertori
CEO, Sustainable Regional Australia Ltd
Project Director, Central Victoria Solar City

Leah Sertori heads up the Central Victoria Solar City Consortium as Project Director. The Central Victoria Solar City Consortium includes Origin, Powercor, Bendigo Bank, Central Victorian Greenhouse Alliance and Sustainable Regional Australia Ltd as lead proponent. Leah is also CEO of Sustainable Regional Australia Ltd.

Leah’s previous roles include CEO of Australia Cares, various leadership roles in the Victorian Education Department including System Policy and Research, Enterprise Education, Career Education and Project Management.

Leah led the development of Australia’s largest business/education partnership ‘Schools First ,’ for National Australia Bank; a $30million project to improve student learning outcomes through school and community partnerships.

Since joining Sustainable Regional Australia Leah has been able to reduce her daily energy consumption at home from 19kW hours per day to 4kW hours per day by implementing energy efficiency measures.

Professor John Martin
Director of La Trobe University’s Centre for Sustainable Regional Communities

Professor John Martin is Director of La Trobe University’s Centre for Sustainable Regional Communities based in Bendigo, central Victoria. John’s research and consulting work is primarily with local government and regional organisations concerned with the sustainability of our rural towns and communities.

He has worked with agricultural industries as diverse as cotton, sugar, dairy and grazing to help build sustainable farming families. He has an ongoing interest in the use of water and renewable energy in regional Australia.

He is currently undertaking research to support landholders connecting to the modernised irrigation system in northern Victoria. He has designed and organised two national conferences on renewable energy which inform communities on how best to access this technology.’

Matthew Warren
Chief Executive, Clean Energy Council

Matthew Warren joined the Clean Energy Council in 2008 having spent 15 years working as anenvironmental policy specialist. An environmental economist by training, his objective at the Councilis to continue the progression of the clean energy industry into the mainstream of energy policydebate in Australia.

As policy director for the Australian Food and Grocery Council he negotiated the first eco-efficiencyagreement in Australia and worked with Australia’s largest manufacturing industry to developcontinuous improvement in environmental performance by establishing and improving environmentalreporting standards. Matthew helped negotiate and deliver the National Packaging Covenant toimprove the environmental performance of product packaging and its role in the overall life cycle ofconsumer goods.

Matthew has also worked for the mining industry in NSW, as an environmental consultant to bothgovernment and industry and was a trainee in the Environment Directorate of the EuropeanCommission. He has also worked as a journalist, most recently as the environment writer for TheAustralian newspaper.

Geoff Lodge
CEO/Executive Director of GV Community Energy

Geoff has spent most of his career with the Victorian Department of Primary Industries and the Department of Sustainability & Environment, located in Northern Victoria, working with farming communities & developers in Natural Resource Management.  Over a 4 year period, Geoff worked as a private consultant undertaking agronomic research in Chinese water chestnuts and co-authored a book on this collaborative work with Central Queensland University.   He also harvested carp from the River Murray and sold this produce to coastal Cray fishers.

Geoff is currently the CEO of GV Community Energy Pty Ltd (GVCE), a community Not-For-Profit company servicing domestic and business to adopt renewable and low emission technology, energy efficiency practices and sustainable communities. Over the past three years, GVCE has facilitated the installation of over 2,600 solar photovoltaic systems, 150 solar hot water units and in partnership with Department of Human Services, liaised with 30 residential customers to install Ceramic Fuel cell units in public houses.  Sustainability Victoria has funded several GVCE projects to assist Age care facilities to install PV systems and one Ceramic fuel cell unit, plus engagement with the Culturally & Linguistically Diverse communities of Shepparton to implement solar PV systems, and funding to implement one of the five “Victorian Solar Hub programs” which is facilitating more PV installations plus Home energy audits.

Dean Bridgfoot
Community Liaison & 100% Renewable Community Campaign
Mount Alexander Sustainability Group

Dean is the father of three vigorous young lads and lives in Castlemaine in Central Victoria. He has been working and volunteering for the Mount Alexander Sustainability Group since 2006 and was involved in the foundation of the 100% renewable energy campaign, who still put up with him!. He  worked as a Vet for 15 years before returning to study for a Masters of Environmental Science, but his real “training” in organising for political change was given to him by the ex-combatants and resettled refuges he worked with during a 2 ½ year stint in El Salvador in the 1990’s. When I left my companeros told me it was now time for me to start my real work and get “my” boot off the head of the Salvadorean people….so I started working on social justice and climate change….what else could I do!

Tobias Geiger,
General Manager, WestWind Energy

Tobias holds a degree and a Masters of Science in Aerospace Engineering. Already during his studies at the University of Stuttgart he attended courses in renewable energy and wind energy. For the past 17 years he has been working in various fields in the area of wind energy ranging from design of rotor blades and material science over manufacturing to project management and wind farm development.

Already considered an industry veteran, Tobias has been deeply involved in wind energy in Europe, Canada and Australia. He has gained relevant experience on wind farm planning issues in Victoria primarily through managing the planning application of the Mt Mercer wind farm for WestWind Energy. Tobias leads WestWind Energy’s steady growth in Australia as the company’s General Manager and Managing Director since 2007 and the company meanwhile has obtained planning permits for over 550MW of wind energy projects and has another 1000 MW of further potential projects in the early feasibility phase.

Geoff Park
Knowledge Broker

Geoff Park has lived with his family in the Newstead area for almost 30 years. He has a keen interest in sport, environment and community development and has been the President of Newstead 2021 since it establishment in 2008. He has worked with the North Central Catchment Management Authority since 1998 and currently is part of a small interdisciplinary research team developing and implementing INFFER (Investment Framework for Environmental Resources) www.inffer.org

He has a long standing interest and involvement with communities working to improve biodiversity conservation in agricultural landscapes and is a trustee of the Norman Wettenhall Foundation a philanthropic organisation dedicated to enhancing and maintaining the vitality and diversity of the Australian natural living environment. Geoff’s interest in renewable energy goes back to building a mudbrick house with his partner Mary and installing a solar PV system in 1988. While he is technically incompetent in these matters he is driven by the social, economic and environmental benefits to be gained by small communities working together to achieve audacious goals … such as becoming 100% reneweable.

Genevieve Barlow
co-founder Renewable Newstead

Genevieve Barlow is a co-founder and active member of Renewable Newstead, a bunch of residents of the town of Newstead, (population about 500) near Castlemaine who are working on addressing the town’s energy needs. “We know that climate change is upon us, but we don’t base our work on Henny Penny-style, catastrophic thinking but on enthusing people about the possibilities ahead for making ours a great place to live,” she says. “I reckon small towns have potential to develop new small economies, based on renewable energy, and in the process can have a lot of fun and foster links within and beyond their boundaries.”

Genevieve is also a freelance writer and columnist and is on the board of the Maldon and District Community Bank.

Ms Ellen Sandell
National Director Australian Youth Climate Coalition

As National Director of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, Ellen is one of Australia’s leading commentators and campaigners on the issue of climate change. Previously as General Manager and Victorian Director of AYCC she has overseen the growth of the AYCC from a small organisation that began in 2006 to a large non-profit with 65,000 members today.

In 2009 Ellen was featured in The Age Melbourne Magazine as one of the top 100 influential Melburnians of 2009, and was recognised as Melbourne’s leading environmentalist, winning the Melbourne Awards for Individual Contribution to the Environment 2009. That same year, she was joint winner of Australia’s most prestigious environment award for young people – the Banksia ‘Young Environmentalist of the Year’ award.

Ellen has worked as a Policy Adviser in the Office of Climate Change in the Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet, and as a research student studying plant genetics at the CSIRO. She was born in Alice Springs and grew up in Mildura, in northwest Victoria. Ellen regularly speaks and writes on climate change issues, and has been published in The Age, the National Times, ABC’s Unleashed, Peppermint magazine and more.

Professor Ian Johnston

Ian holds the Golder Associates Chair in Geotechnical Engineering in the Department of Infrastructure Engineering at the University of Melbourne. For most of his career, he has divided his time between teaching and research into many different aspects of geotechnical engineering and as a practicing consulting engineer on a wide range of large infrastructure projects in Australia and overseas.

Over recent years he has become increasingly involved with geothermal energy particularly related to the direct form when used to provide heating and cooling for buildings and industrial processes. He currently leads a rapidly growing research group working on direct geothermal energy with particular interest in the design and performance of the ground as an effective and economic heat source and sink. An important component of this work involves the assessment of ground heat exchanger systems through the detailed monitoring of performance of different installed ground systems.

Jen Enticott, Goldfields SolarHub Project Manager

Jen is the Goldfields SolarHub Project Manager. The project, which is a joint initiative of the Bendigo and the Mount Alexander Sustainability Groups, aims to install 1,000 photovoltaic (PV) systems within those regions by September 2012.  Jen is responsible for managing the implementation of this project, ensuring robust communication with all stakeholders to facilitate the process and to enable a smooth effortless purchase and installation experience for the homeowners.

Jen has previously worked as Technical Manager for a Solar Panel Installation Company and as a Renewable Remote Power Generation Manager for the Federal Government.  She is also a Clean Energy Council licensed Designer and Supervisor for Grid Connected Systems.   Jen is passionate about Solar power and engaging the community.  She has relished the challenge of getting the Goldfields SolarHub Project off the ground and exceeding the initial targets.

Jeremy Rich
Co-Founder & CEO of Energy Matters

Jeremy Rich holds a Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Information Systems – Major in Actuarial Studies and his strengths are financial mathematics, corporate finance and information systems. In 2010 he was announced a nominee for Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year. Jeremy is actively involved in all facets of the business, from sales and marketing to supply chain. He is the face of the business and has become the charismatic and outspoken voice of the solar industry.